c >. 



DR. SPOFFORD'S ADDRESS 

TO THE 

JESSEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



AN 



ADDRESS 

TO THE 

ESSEX COUNTY 
AGRI€VlLTrRA£. SOCIETY, 

AT 

NEW-ROWLEY, SEPTEMBE^l 26, 1933^ 

AT TRKIR 

Annual (Utattle Shoto. 



BY JEREMIAH SPOFFORD, 



33uWfsi)eK 1)2 oxtitv of tj)e Socfets, 



J' SALEM: 

miNTSD BT FOOTE XVD CHIiH«LK, 

1834. 



,V)Tary of Co, 



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ADDRESS 



Gentlemen 



I consider myself happy, in the class of my 
fellow citizens that I am this day called upon to address. 
The character and pursuits of a New-England farmer, have 
always held an honorable place in my estimation. It was among 
them, and in their employment, that I spent those years of hap- 
py childhood, when every thing makes its deepest impressions. 
My earliest ideas of property, were derived from their possee- 
sions. To me houses and farms and cattle were wealth, and 
their owners nature's nobility. While money and notes, and 
stocks and merchandise, appeared fleeting and transient — there 
seemed something in the possession of solid acres, especially 
when these were compact farms, with their venerable mansions, 
descending from generation to generation, that elevated the pos- 
sessor, and gave a dignity and character to his pursuits truly hon- 
pfable and desirable. 

Nor have these been merely the illusions of youth : they have 
followed me, and I have cherished them in my riper years. — 
And I view with gratitude that kind Providence, which cast my 
youth among that class of society. The labours of the field gave 
a value to my scanty library, and my few hours of study, of 
which, under almost any other circumstances I could have had 
no conception : and memory still loves to " hover o'er" those in- 
estimable Sabbaths, when, after six days labour done, we found 
a day of restf and assembled within these very walls,* to en- 

* My native place. 



6 DR. spofford's address. 

joy it in social, solemn worship ; nor can any one know the 
ralue of those Sabbaths, unless it be those who spend the week 
in patient labour, and assemble on the seventh as a sacred holi- 
day, to greet the countenances of their friends, and pay their de- 
votions to the most high God. Here then we met few except 
cultivators of the soil, prepared by their labours in the field to 
render their tribute of gratitude to Him who gives rain from 
lieaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and glad- 
ness. Venerable fathers ! who then bowed in this sacred tem- 
ple ! may your sons as patiently cultivate the soil you then pos- 
sessed, and as devoutly worship here. 

You will forgive this digression, when you look around the 
world, and see how closely connected are Christian morality and 
Agricultural prosperity, — and you will as soon expect to gather 
grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, as to find a well cultiva- 
ted farm under the superintendence of him who neither fears God, 
nor regards man. 

Writers in all ages have been lavish in their praises of the im- 
portant pursuits of the husbandman. The flowery fields, the 
bleating herds, the rural cottage, and the domestic fireside, have 
furnished poets and orators with their brightest images. But 
while they have thus been lavish of their panegyrics, few of them 
have descended from their elevations to cleave the sod, and 
nourish the plants, which produce all these beautiful images. 
But at the present day nothing. is more common, than for men to 
quit our halls of legislation, our courts of justice, ships and mer- 
chandise, or the learned professions, to seek in agricultural purr 
suits for that tranquil enjoyment, that health of body and peace 
of mind, which they had sought in vain among the objects of 
towering ambition, the eager pursuits of wealth, and the jarring 
interests of a busy world. 

Thirty years ago Cincinnatus had many admirers, but very few 
imitators ; but now the Cincinnati of America may be found in eve- 
ry part of our land, and men whose names are well known to the 
politicians and literati of our country, may frequently be found aid- 
ing in the labours of the field. Their plans, and their pens, and 
their instruments of labour, co-operate in the same wise and be- 



DR. SPOFFORD S ADDRESS. 7 

nevolent design — to multiply the fruits of the earth, the great 
mine of real wealth, and store-house of sustenance for man and 
beast. 

That kind of fictitious consequence, which struts in ruffles and 
gloves, is fairly out of fashion. This may be styled the age of 
utility ; and that man, as well as that machine, that is of no use, 
is very little valued ; and the person who should in this age and 
nation, wear appendages or ornaments to show that he did noth- 
ings would at the same time, in the estimation of an immense ma- 
jority, be making himself ridiculous, and showing himself worth 
nothing. Riches to any amount now give no exemption from this 
universal law ; but on the other hand, if a man has capital, he 
is considered under increased obligation to attend to business, 
and he is hardly excused when he provides business enough to 
ensure the industry of himself and household, but he is looked to 
for the plans and the capital which is to employ the hands, and 
furnish subsistence for his whole village or neighborhood. 

This is among the most important improvements of the pres- 
ent age, and it has had a most salutary effect upon agriculture 
that so many men of talent, property and education, have cho- 
sen this as the object of their pursuit, and the sphere of their in- 
dustry. To the young and ambitious, the tiresome labour and 
the slow acquirements of the farmer, have often appeared repul- 
sive ; they have sought out some readier source of wealth, or 
what they might have considered a more genteel employment. 
They have often turned their backs upon advantageous settle- 
ments, and birthrights of inestimable value, to seek in distant 
lands, or foreign climes, for sources of gain and scenes of excite- 
ment and novelty. In a small proportion of instances these 
hopes have been realized ; but in innumerable others, they have 
ended in sorrow, vexation and disappointment, and thousands of 
sighs of bitter anguish have risen from the bosom of the broad 
ocean, or echoed from foreign shores, when memory cast a " long- 
ing, lingering look" over the pleasant hills and fruitful fields of 
New-England. 

The learned professions, merchandise, and manufactures, when 
selected by congenial minds, may have been wisely chosen, and 



\ 

8 DR. spofford's address. 

in many instances have led to happy results ; but how many, 
even of those who have succeeded well in their plans, while en- 
during their tremendous responsibilities, their anxious cares, and 
their ruinous risks, have envied the farmer, who free from those 
cares, is tranquil by day, and finds repose and refreshment at 
night, in sound oblivious sleep ; and who, independent of the 
breath of popularity, or the fortune of trade, depends for prosper- 
perty only on himself and heaven. 

Agriculture at the present day, instead of being a mean, servile 
employment, is now justly ranked as an important science ; and 
the studies of the learned are now often directed to the most 
laudable employment of multiplying the fruits of the earth, and 
improving the quality of the fruits produced. 

Chemistry no longer examines the material world iri search of 
fictitious wealth. Philosophers have become convinced that in 
transmuting the simple elements into grain And fruit, fit for the 
nourishment of men and animals, they perform a much more 
useful service than they would have done had they succeeded 
in transmuting iron into gold, or lead into silver. 

The long sought art of transmuting metals, though it might 
enrich the discoverer, would now be considered of questionable 
utility. The art of multiplying the fruits of the earth, has 
already spread the most solid comfort over this and other lands : 
and nearly banished want and famine from the civilized world ; 
and yet so far is that art from having reached its maximum, 
that even in this State, though more thickly inhabited than any 
other portion of this Union, no doubt can reasonably remain but 
that three times its present inhabitants might be sustained on 
our own soil. 

When our soil shall be thoroughly analyzed, and every acrei 
applied to its appropriate use, and when the increase of popula- 
tion, or a diminished supply from abroad, shall turn our attention 
to our own resources, our now naked plains will be loaded with 
luxuriant vegetation, and our hills shall wave with the golden 
harvest. 

Even that vastextension of manufactures which already strains 
the Merrimack through flumes and wheels, and threatens even to 



DR. spofford's address. 9 

turn Niagara to a mill seat : but furnishes a home market, and 
increases the necessity and the reward of agricultural industry : 
and the time is at hand when railroads shall traverse our mountain 
valleys, and every article shall be trundled with ease and veloci- 
ty from the place of supply to the place of consumption. 
In pursuing the subject 1 propose 

First — to examine the advantages we enjoy, in this county, 
as an agricultural community : and compare them with advanta- 
ges in oiher parts of the country. 

Secondly — to notice some of the most essential circumstances 
which contribute to develop and improve these advantages. 

As to the advantages we enjoy it is highly desirable that we 
form a correct estimate. Truth is always desirable, and this is 
peculiarly so, when it enables us to place a proper value upon 
our own property ; and ])revents our envying others the enjoy- 
ment of theirs, when perhaps our own is most valuable. 

Such has been the rage for western emigration, for the last 
twenty years, that the soil of New England has, in the estimation 
of good judges, been greatly undervalued. New lands, to be 
bought for a trifle, and which being new, would naturally produce 
a (ew large crops, have allured many a youth from advanta- 
ges which he and his family will have cause to regret for many 
generations. We have not a soil which will yield copiously 
without assiduous cultivation, 'tis true ; but we have a soil which 
as richly repays the labor and expense bestowed as in any part 
of the world. 

It is yet to be proved whether the soils in the western Slates, 
after a hundred years of cultivation, will be better than ours ; 
and it is further yet to be proved, whether their sand and 
alluvion will as well sustain the manures necessary to recover an 
exhausted soil, as our own granite base. 

Liarger crops than are here obtained, wherever the hand of 
the diligent applies the plough and manure with liberality, if at- 
tainable, are hardly desirable. A few spots in which an impro- 
ved system of agriculture has been introduced, have proved the 
boundless resources which our soil may supply, whenever our 

people shall be induced to apply their energies to this branch 
2 



10 CB. SPOFFORD'S ADDRESS. 

of industry. A hundred bushels of indian corn, sixty bushels 
of oats, forty bushels of rye, three tons of hay, three hundred 
bushels of potatoes, have severally been raised x)n an acre of 
our soil — and when its value, compared with prices in the west- 
ern country, is taken into the account, it is believed that few 
cultivators of the soil will find a richer reward. If man could 
live by bread alone, it might perhaps be an object to transport 
ourselves to the banks of the Ohio, where grain generally bears 
from one-fourth to a third of the price it does here : but we are 
now speaking of farmers, living in decent style, who have many 
things to buy, and ought always to have something to sell, and 
to such, one bushel of grain raised here, will bring him in as 
much of cash, or the necessaries of hfe, as four raised in the 
western country. 

When in former years I used to partake of the labor of 
" hay-time," and brooded over the hardship of spending all 
summer in providing food to sustain the cattle over winter, I 
thought the farmers of the south were blessed indeed, where the 
cattle could find their own food on green pastures all the year, 
and fatten at large beneath a milder sky. But upon better 
information I found, that instead of raising fine cattle without 
labor, they could scarce raise them at all ; that their beef was 
poor, and a Georgia cow scarcely yielded more milk than a 
New England goat ; and that instead of green pastures all the 
year, grass hardly grows, and they scarcely know what a green 
pasture is. 

A medical friend,* who spent a summer in Georgia, observed 
that all appearance of green grass in fields or pastures, is entirely 
parched and dry by August ; that the kw cattle live on straw, 
and the tops of corn, and by picking a little grass along the 
banks of streams and in shady places. So that our southern 
States, aside from the artificial curse of slavery, can hardly claim 
advantages over New England. 

We enjoy advantages somewhat peculiar in having fertile lands 
along the seacoast, so that we have a ready market and our 
green hills greet the eye of the mariner as he sails along our 

* Dr. VVurrcn Abbot, deceased. 



DR. SPOFFORD S ADDRESS. 11 

shores. The other maritime counties of this State, wonid suffer 
much on a comparison with Essex. And along our southern 
coast, Virginia, the Carohnas, and Georgia, present for the most 
part, for eighty or one hundred miles from the sea, pine barrens, 
sandy plains, and swamps, abounding in noxious insects, and 
venomous reptiles. A single swamp, lying in Georgia and 
Florida, is one hundred and eighty miles in circumference ! and 
no degree of fertility, or an everlasting summer could compen- 
sate for the pestiferous exhalations, which during many months 
of the year load every breeze with pestilence and death. Ano 
ther medical friend,* who spent a summer, in Charleston, 
South Carolina, informs me that though that city is extremely 
unhealthy, compared with northern cities, yet the country around 
it, is vastly more so. Very few white people live in, and as few 
as possible attempt to cross over the level country for sixty or sev- 
enty miles back of Charleston in summer. To go beyond the ram- 
parts of the city, especially in the nighttime, is for many months 
almost certain death ! Now what degree of fertility added to 
our soil, would compensate for such an atmosphere ? 

Casting our eyes to the southwest, the country along the 
lower Mississippi, must have been once an immense bay, or arm 
of the Gulf of Mexico, but the alluvial deposit, floated annually 
down this immense river, from the boundless west, has filled up 
this bay : and made most of it into swamp, and part of it into 
something like dry land. The immensity of waters from three 
thousand miles, and ten thousand hills, still kept a main channel 
through this wilderness of water and mire and driftuiood, and 
depositing more soil, when the thickened waters first spread from 
the main channel, than was carried farther back, the banks of 
the river became much higher than the back country. 

The fertility of this soil, and advantages for commerce have 
allured people to settle along this river bank : and an artificial 
dam has been erected for one hundred and seventy miles above 
New Orleans, to keep the waters in the river during its annual 
overflow ! and to defend the city of New Orleans, and the 
plantations which lie behind this bank, from inundation ! Here 

* Alonzo Chapin, M. D. now Missionary at tho Sandwich Islandi. 



\ 

12 DK. sporroRD's address. 

land more fertile than your granite hills offers its abundance of 
cotton, sugar, rice and corn, but among these rich plantations, 
the malaria sweeps with the besom of destruction, and hundreds 
of our enterprising young men go annually to gain property, and 
take the fearful chance of laying their dust, where even a grave 
cannot be prepared but fills with water before it receives its 
tenant. 

A clergyman of this State,* who was seized with this spirit 
of emigration, some years ago, aud has indulged it to his heart's 
content, informs us that the villages on the Arkansas and Red 
rivers are uninhabitable during summer, and the people leave 
them and build camps in the woods, and on higher grounds, to 
escape certain death. He spent one summer in one of these 
encampments, battling with the rausquitoes, and resolving to im- 
prove the first moment of escape to a more northern climate. 

Over all this southern region of the United States you might 
search in vain for an assembly like this. An industrious yeo- 
manry is there unknown. There the taskmaster brandishes his 
lash, and the slaves labor beneath a burning sun, curse the race 
that fatten and luxuriate upon their toil, and whet the appetite 
of revenge and the scythe of death for a day of future retribution. 

Fathers and mothers of JNew England ! Could all the gold of 
INI exico induce you to fix your domicil, and leave your children, 
where their only chance of safety was the prospect of holding a 
population of two and a half millions, and their rapidly increasing 
posterity in a state of perpetual bondage ? with an equal chance 
that thirty years will turn the scale, deluge the country in blood, 
and give the white population only the desperate alternaiives of 
death, slavery, or exile? 

Comparing the higher regions of the great valley of the Mis- 
sissippi with our own State, we shall also find its advantages so 
nearly overbalanced by disadvantages, that a wise man will feel 
reconciled to the soil and climate of New England. 

The immense vegetation which annually decays in a rich 
I'lluvial soil, saturated with water, is sure in a warm or new 
country, to render the air unhealthy, and produce bilious and 

•Mr. FlioU 



DR. SPOFFORD S ADDRESS. 13 

Other diseases. Here, if we find a few acres of swamp, too low 
to be drained into some running stream, we consider it a deformi- 
ty, and are suspicious of its influence upon health ; but in all the 
boundless regions of the west hitherto explored, swamps lying 
. so low that the rivers annually overflow into them, and there 
leave ponds of fresh water, to stagnate and pollute the air, are a 
general feature of the country. Here the waters run off from 
our hills, plains, and meadows, into the rivers.; there, ovei' mil- 
lions of acres, il;e waters come down the rivers, overflow their 
banks, and run back into the swiimps. Much of this land may 
in process of time be made useful, by cutting canals through the 
river banks, that the waters may drain off when the inundation 
subsides, but a population of one or two to a square mile, makes 
slow progress in draining the unnumbered thousands of stagnant 
pools, and " dismal swamps." 

1 should consider myself as criminal, were 1 to traduce the 
character of a country, as the character of an individual ; and I 
would not state these facts in such an assembly, but for what 
appear to me to be justifiable motives. 

Thousands of our youth have been allured from their paternal 
homes by accounts of the plenty and fertility of western lands, 
without duly considering the labors, privations, and perils they 
must encounter in cultivating and reaping the fruits of this fertili- 
ity, in the bosom of a wilderness, on the borders of an immense 
desolate prairie, or in the midst of a spreading inundation. 

Nor have many of these emigrants considered what they will 
find painfully true, that they and their generation will have pass- 
ed off the sta2;e, before their new homes possess the advantages 
of a New England settlement, — comfortable dwellings, fruitful 
orchards, good roads, social village s, schools of science and tem- 
ples of the living God. 

Every mail from the west teems with the Macedonian cry, 
come over and help us. Hundreds of youth accustomed to 
spend their sabbaths in the churches of the puritans, now find, by 
privation, the value of those privileges which perhaps once 
they slighted ; and the question whether this floating population, 
brought together from the four quarters of the world, is ever to 



14 DR. spofford's address. 

settle down into anything like the moral and religious society of 
New England, is yet to be decided. 

An intelligent gentleman with whom I lately conversed, who 
went from this county in 1817, and resides in one of the principal 
cities on the Ohio, and who has been more successful in his 
pursuits than most of his fellow emigrants, says he would not 
advise any one to go into the western valley who is comfortably 
situated as to business or property here. A long life scarcely 
serves to wean a person of common sensibility from the faces of 
his friends and the tombs of his ancestors. To thousands who 
have gone out from among us, INew England will still be their 
" home," and the western valley their place of exile. 

It is true, my friends, that you might go where you would find 
a deeper soil and a milder climate, or you may command a wider 
extent of territory, and live with less labor — but who of you 
would exchange your "sloping hills" and your granite fences, for 
the vast prairies and wooden fences of the west ? 

Who of you would leave your warm barns and well-fed flocks, 
that you might see your caitle picking a precarious existence, 
through the winter, in marshes and fens, or shivering with wet 
and cold around an uncovered haystack ? 

Who, to avoid the drifting snow and driving sleet, would 
leave the land of pleasant sleighrides, and happy winter 
evenings, to breath the sirocco, which sweeps from the Gulf 
of Mexico for weeks together, up the boundless valley, loaded 
with the fetid exhalations of a thousand bayous and swamps ? 

The cold seasons of 1812 and 1816, and the intermediate 
years, produced a disposition in many to abandon their native 
land, as though nature had changed, and the divine promise of 
seed time and harvest had failed ; but the profusion with 
which the fruits of the earth have been showered around uSj 
for the last fifteen years, should teach every farmer to value 
his soil, to be content with his climate, and never to distrust the 
faithfulness of Him who governs the seasons. 

Alternate showers and sunshine have covered the earth with 
a luxuriance of fruit which has literally compelled many of you 
?' to pull down your barns and build greater." 



DR. spofford's address. 15 

'Tis true your lands are not annually enriched by the alluvion 
of rivers three thousand miles long : nor are your fences and 
cattle and buildings swept away by the overflow of such rivers. 
Yet no part of the country is more finely diversified with rivers 
and streams of water, than Massachusetts — than your own coun- 
ty of Essex. Almost every farm is supplied by its running 
brook — mill-streams and rivers of manageable magnitude are 
found in almost every town : and the majestic Hudson rolls not 
a more beautiful sheet of water, nor presents banks more luxu- 
riantly fringed with shrubbery, or exhibits finer river scenery, 
than your own Merrimack. With strict truth we may here 
apply the lines of the poet of the Connecticut : 

" No watery glearas tlirougli happier villas shine, 
"Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine." 

From what has been said and from many other considerations, 
I conclude that the sons of New England should value their 
birthright, and wherever their enterprise may lead them in pur- 
suit of wealth or honor, that they have cause to prize the land 
of their nativity — the land of constant industry and steady 
habits — the land of" bibles and of sabbaths" — the land of "red 
schoolhouses and white churches" — the land where slavery is 
unknown. 

" My own green land forever. 

•'O! never may a son of thine, 
" Where e'er his wandering steps incline, 
" Forget the sky which bent above 
" His childhood, like a dream of love." 

Although the sceptre of political power may have departed 
from the " cradle of liberty," and even the seat of empire be 
already loosening from its foundations for its removal from the 
Atlantic States ; yet the time-honored history of the past — the 
happy institutions and habits of the present day — and the enter- 
prise which is inherent in the sons of the pilgrims — will ever 
secure New England an honorable place in her country's annals, 
and as the Jews from every nation under heaven, look towards 
Jerusalem, as the land of hope and of promise ; — so the distant 



16 DR. spofford's address. 

wanderer o'er sea and land, shall in vision or reality return 
to wander over the happy haunts of his childhood, and lay his 
ashes on his native soil. 

True these opinions would be of more weight if they came 
from abroad, or from one who had travelled extensively ; but 
these estimates of other parts of our country are founded on the 
observations of many competent witnesses ; and as it is an honor 
to a child to highly esteem his father's house, so I consider it 
an honor, a duty, and a privilege, to do justice to my native soil. 

Let us now attend to some of the means essential for the 
improvement and enjoyment of these advantages. 

And one of the first requisites for the improvement of our ad- 
vantages is — untiring industry. 

It is often literally true that the hand of" the diligent maketh 
rich;" but where from any cause it fails to enable a person to 
gather heaps of shining dust, it always in this land enables the 
diligent to possess constantly and plentifully the necessaries and 
comforts of life, which to every reasonable mind is true riches. 

See England by her active industry extending the arm of her 
power over every sea, and drawing her supplies from the remo- 
test corners of the earth. 

Water and steam and muscular force, is in perpetual action. 
The very elements are forced to labor, and the island is one 
vast workshop. Her ships and seamen brave the tempests of 
every sea, and bring back the riches of every clime. The mer- 
chandise of both the Indies congregates in her warehouses, and 
her merchants are literally princes, and a hundred millions of 
the indolent Asiatics own their authority and lay their unwilling 
tribute at their feet.* 

The advantages of industry on a large scale, are also strikingly 
illustrated by the comfort and prosperity of New England com- 
pared with our southern States. 

* Yet notwithstanding tlie political power and grasping policy of England,- the nation is so 
convinced of the iniquity, impolicy and uselossncss of personal SLAVERT,that it is not permitted 
on her soil, and is about (at a great expense) to bo extirpated from her colonies ! an exampis 
worthy to be followed by our nation, when boasting of its LiaXiTt ond proelaimiog that " att 
m«a ar« born free and equal." 



DR. spofford's address. 17 

While New England retains habits of industry, she will pros- 
per under any system of policy which the general government 
can constitutionally pursue. And though a vacillating policy, 
and frequent and sudden changes, may embarrass and perplex 
our commerce and manufactures, yet even that can only diminish 
the profits of the people, but reaches not the deep laid founda- 
tions of New England prosperity. 

While on the other hand our southern brethren may threaten 
or nullify — change the tariff or perpetrate a revolution, — they 
will still find they have not reached the cause of their depression. 
The absence of voluntary vigorous industry is the real cause of 
the evils of which they complain. A white population ashamed 
to be " seen with implements of labor in their hands," and a 
black population doing as little labor as possible, is enough to 
"nullify" the prosperity of any country. Perhaps some may 
imagine that it were easy to grow rich where men possess slaves 
who labor without wages. But let such remember that these 
slaves are also men, who must eat or they cannot work — that 
they must be maintained, the old and the young, — the sick, the 
" lame, and the lazy," with the taskmasters necessary to make 
them labor at all, before any surplus can arise to support the 
luxury of the landlord. Now put a hundred of these laborers, 
as they would rise, from infancy to age, under the care of some 
hireling taskmaster, while the owner of the whole concern is ab- 
sent at a horse race, or a barbacue, and what is his chance of 
a clear profit, for the support of a princely retinue ? 

Take even a hundred poor people of New England : let the 
maintenance of them and their children be made sure, thus re- 
moving all the stimulus of liberty and property on the one 
hand, and all fear of poverty and want on the other, and who of 
you would become bound for their maintenance for all the sur- 
plus of their labor ? You would much sooner hire the laborers, 
pay them their wages, and dismiss them to their own cares, when 
the labor was done. 

You will therefore see that slavery lays the axe at the root of 
the tree of industry, and that indolence saps tht; foundation of 
public or private prosperity. Whatever removes the stimulus to 



18 Dr.. spoffokd's address. 

industry, whether pohtical, moral, or physical, it is equally ruin- 
ous to nations, states, private families, or individuals. 

To no class of men does this necessity of constant industry 
apply more forcibly than iho farmei". He turns his own wiieel 
of foitune, more ein])hatically than almost any other class ; those 
great and sudden turns of fortune which sometimes raise or de- 
press others, lay quite out of ills track. With firm foot hold he 
climbs the ascent to wealth ; or with loosened energies he slides 
down the gradual descent to poverty. 

The eyes of the master or owner must pervade the whole es- 
tablishment; his mind and his hands must be equally ready to do 
their appropriate work ; his example must be such that no idler 
can feel easy for an hour on his premises. 

Another requisite to prosperity is systematic plans. Men 
■who have no enterprise to plan will have still less if possible to 
execute. Few men do more than they intend to do, and there 
are or ought to be few who have not ambition enough to rouse 
all their energies to accomplish what they have once deliberately 
planned to do. 

I would bj no means encourage or excite inordinate ambi- 
tion, but still a desire for property, and accommodation (call 
it by what name you please) is the life-spring of all that is 
laudable and valuable in society. 

That man who is the mere child of circumstances, acting 
only as he is acted upon by his necessities, may enjoy a kind 
of Indian tranquiUifi/, but with such men only, the march of 
improvement must stop in its course, and society fall back into 
barbarism. 

That man who aims at nothing, will certainly accomplish 
nothing; he that is content with a cabin, will never possess a 
palace; but he that figures to himself the conveniences and 
elegancies of life, will make exertion to obtain them, and will 
enjoy at least as much in a well directed pursuit, as in the 
full possession. 

The farmer who is content with a shabby house, wooden 
fences, and ten bushels of corn or five hundred of hay to the 
acre, will seldom find himself in a better situation, while he who 



DR. spoffcrd's address. 19 

plans to possess good buildings, permanent fences, and to see 
his lands ornamented with fruit trees, and covered with seventy- 
bushels of corn, and three tons of bay, to the acre, with life 
and a common blessing, will certainly accomplish his plans. 

You are perhaps most of you familiar with the history of Sir 
William Phipps, who raised himself from a wood coaster from 
the then wilderness of Maine, to be knighted by King William, 
and made Governor of 3iassachusetts ! 

He used to say when in his lowest state, that he should live in 
a brick house in Green lane, (now Brattle-street,) Boston, and 
command better men than he was then thought to be himself — 
and his own confident perseverance accomplished what he had 
planned. He had his brick house in Green lane, and command- 
ed in chief the State of Massachusetts. Now all cannot be 
Governors, nor raise from the ocean a Spanish galleon laden with 
gold as he did, but all by good plans, with industry, economy, 
and health, can obtain that which is just as good, comfortable 
dwellings, good farms, and a competency of other appenda- 
ges. 

A third requisite for success to the farming interest is that the 
farmer's mind should be in his business. That man who is 
above his business, is in danger of soon finding that he has got 
below it ; for no business will long sustain a man when 
his mind has got above it. Tiiat farmer who devotes 
his mind and his energies to his farm, till it is so Au- improved 
that it elevates him above the necessity of constant labor, is the 
most independent and enviable character in our country; free 
from the responsibility of office, and the toils and cares of a 
profession, he eats the fruits he has reared, with more zest 
than can be realized by any other class. A good farm covered 
with flocks and herds and fruits, is a truly enviable possession, 
and like Robinson Crusoe, the farmer is often " monarch of 
all he surveys." 

Another requisite to prosperity, is the keeping of good ac- 
counts. Farmers not being under that constant necessity of 
using the pen which attaches to men of business, are too apt to 
throw it quite aside ; and it is believed have often suffered by 



20 DR. spofford's address. 

trusting to otlieis' accounts, to memory, or to marks on their 
doors and wainscots. 

To record in a book kept for the purpose, all their labor and 
experiments upon their farms, as recommended by a distin- 
guished agriculturist, in your last annual pamphlet, 1 have no 
doubt would richly compensate the labor, but it is my present 
purpose to urge the necessity of keeping a fair and exact ac- 
count of the date and circumstances of every money or barter 
transaction between man and man. It would save many of 
those uncharitable thoughts and hard speeches which often alien- 
ate friends, and disturb the peace of neighborhoods. 

If every person kept exact accounts of all his debts and credit, 
law suits would be very unfrequeiit, and our friends the law- 
yers would be relieved from the disagreeable necessity of send- 
ing their uncharitable " Greetings," or writing " your goods and 
chattels are attached," or " for the want thereof take the body." 
And as I always rejoice when the bodily health of the communi- 
ty is such as to relieve physicians from the care of the sick, to 
turn their attention to their books, their farms, and their gardens ; 
so will I rejoice when the health of the body politic, is such, that 
our much esteemed friends, the lawyers, may be entirchj relieved 
from professional cares, to devote their distinguished talents to 
employments more profitable to the community. 

One more requisite to prosperity you must permit me to name, 
and that is the disuse of ardent spirit. 

I am sorry that I cannot name this subject, without exciting 
some unpleasant feelings, but I cannot, in justice to this Society, 
or my profession, omit to mention a cause which has so long 
hung like a mill-stone, to weigh down the prosperity of the coun- 
try. No portion of the community have paid a heavier tribute 
to the distillery than the farmers. Their laborious occupa- 
tion and exposure to heat and cold, fostered the belief that ar- 
dent spirits were necessary to them. But this error is now near- 
ly exploded, and 1 rejoice that the hour of their emancipation 
has arrived. Too long have you submitted to a tax which nei- 
ther you nor youi fathers were able to bear, — a tax ten times 
more burdensome that Great Britain ever attempted to impose, 



DR. spofford's address. 21 

when it was resisted by a seven years' war. But what is worst 
of all is, that this tax is not like the tax on tea, merely collected 
and carried out of the country, but it returns in another form to 
curse the payer and make him an idiot and a slave. Here some 
will object, and say they still use spirits, and have neither spent 
their property, nor destroyed their intellects. I allow the truth 
of the assertion, some can bear the expense without serious em- 
barrassment, and regulate their appetites so that they are never 
drunken. But to such I would say, you incur a useless expense, 
and encourage by your example your neighbor, who can neither 
bear the expense, nor regulate his appetite. Let me entreat 
such to change their example to the other side of the question, 
and lend their aid in drying those tears of heart-rending anguish 
which flow without mixture, where a husband and a father is 
spending his estate, wasting his time, and converting himself in- 
to an idiot or a savage. We have all seen those that thought 
the same — that they knew what did them good, and could gov- 
ern themselves ; thai they were in no danger of being drunkards, 
and resented even the suspicion of danger. But still they are 
lost, their business neglected, their property spent, their farms 
mortgaged, their families ruined ! I would that this were only 
imagination ; but I know, and you all know, that it is the truth, 
and that in numerous instances. 

But some say this is a land of liberty, and they scorn to he 
even persuaded not to exercise it, in every particular. 

What a glorious liberty it is for a man to exercise, to leave 
his business, travel four miles and back, under a burning sun, to 
vindicate his right to spend twenty cents for rum ! to tickle his 
palate, intoxicate his brain, and burn up his liver — hiding bis 
bottle, and hanging his head like a thief, when he meets those 
whom he owes and cannot pay. My friends, I paint from real 
life ; but I hope such farmers are scarce. 

Now, who enjoys real liberty ? He who consumes only the 
produce of his farm, or drinks pure water from the cooling spring, 
and returns to his labour, sober, thriving, and independent? — Or 
he whose every shilling is mortgaged to the retailer before it is 
earned — who is too head-strong to be persuaded; and too far gone 



22 DR. spoffokd's address. 

to make a self-moved and independent resolve to be dee ? Were 
1 the subject of any government, or the servant of any master on 
earth, who exacted as heavy a tribute as I have seen paid, or as 
hard service as I have seen performed, or imposed as heavy suf- 
ferings as 1 have seen endured, by ardent spirits, I would resist 
at the hazard of my life. I would organize a rebellion to the 
extent of my influence. I would die in the last entrenchment, 
and ensure the extermination of my posterity, before I would 
submit to it. 

But some farmers yet say they cannot hire laborers, unless 
they give them ardent spirits. This does for an excuse, when 
both the owner and the laborer are desirous to use it ; but no 
man who is firm and unwavering, leaves his crops ungathered 
for want of help ; but hundreds of farmers are now ready to tes- 
tify that they never had their work done when spirits were us- 
ed, so easy and so well. Seventy Physicians of Boston have 
fixed their names to the opinion that ardent spirits are never 
necessary to persons in health : and my own experience in la- 
bor anc exposure in cold and heat, by night and by day, confirms 
me in ihe opinion that a dose of spirit is no more necessary in 
health than a dose of calomel or tartar emetic. 

The expense of a gallon of rum a week, to a farmer, is no 
small consideration ; in twenty years if saved it would make him 
a handsome estate, or the want of it may make him a beggar. 
Whether we therefore consider it on the score of healih, mo- 
rality, or expense, it becomes ^mong the most important consid- 
erations in the prosperity of a farmer. 

Finally, my fiiends, I congratulate you on the prosperous 
condition in which this anniversary finds your society. How 
the exhibition of this day may compare with preceding ones, in 
its details. I am unprepared to state ; but that the society has 
exalted the standard of agriculture, called into exercise a great 
amount of female ingenuity, promoted harmony and useful inter- 
course, diffused the knowledge of useful facts, and exerted a 
beneficent influence, 1 have no reason to doubt. 

The formation and support of societies is among the most 
efficient means of improvement; in all the useful arts of th« 



DR. spofford's address. 23 

present day. It encourages and rewards the spirit of enterprise ; 
it diffuses the knowledge of useful experiments, and introduces 
the use of important inventions ; and tends by multiplying 
opportunities of social intercourse, to do away those illiberal feel- 
ings, and groundless jealousies, which often exist between differ- 
ent sections of country, and sometimes even disturb the harmony 
of towns and neighborhoods. 

Some have entertained doubts of the utility of this annual 
festival, as a useless expense of time and money. Let such 
remember that man is a social being, that a constant unvaried 
round of solitary labor is unfitted to his nature, and by no means 
adapted to Uie highest development of his intellectual and 
physical energies. Divmes, lawyers, physicians, have their 
societies, in which they meet to discuss their professional opera- 
tions and brighten their minds by friendly collision. Merchants 
daily assemble on 'change, to learn the interests and improve 
the facilities of trade. And shall the farmers deny themselves a 
day, on which all who take an interest in agriculture can meet 
on common ground, merely because they do not handle the 
direct and palpable income of a day's labor ? No ! Their 
necessities do not demand it, and the place they occupy in our 
community forbids the slavish idea. 

Societies are found the most direct means of accomplishing 
almost every enterprise in our growing republic ; and annual or 
periodical festivals, have the sanction of scripture, and the 
remotest antiquity. The Jewish ritual enjoined a festival and 
offering of first fruits at the ingathering of the harvest, a day 
in which they should " do no servile labor." The Romans and 
the Greeks had their agricultural fetivals, dedicated to Bac- 
chus and Ceres, whom they honored as the gods of corn and 
wine : and it has also the sanction of reason, as the fruits of 
autumn fall, to assemble, mutually to communicate the result of 
their labors, and enjoy what has been emphatically styled the 
farmer's holiday. 

Long may this society enjoy the smiles of heaven. Long 
may they enjoy the character for industry, sobriety and morality, 



24 DR. spofford's address. 

wlilch for two centuries has distinguished the farmers of New 
England. And long may they continue to reap abundant 
harvests, 

"Till the great reaping time shall como, 
" And angclg shout the harvest home." 



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